What if... they're all true?

Train of thought. The Great Flood. It's a myth in every civilization. I've found 267 independent stories from cultures across the world. Obviously it can't be true, because how would you do it, practically? Make a boat that big? Only yourself? In such little time? And would two of everything be able to repopulate a species without genetics handing out a massive ass-kicking to everyone a few generations with the recessive genes stick?

Maybe the problem isn't that we're taking it literally. 

Maybe the problem is that we're not taking it literally enough. 

267 written records found, from 267 cultures. How many more didn't have those records, or lost them over the couple of thousands of years?

How many Arks in every civilization, with the myths running together over time to make a single super-myth?

What if there really was a Great Flood, and every farm and homestead that could, loaded up all family and livestock, waited it out, and got on with life as usual when the waters went down - maybe several from each village? Genetic diversity maintained, Actual mechanics of the process looking a lot more likely. What if each 'Ark' was just the local high ground, to which every species eventually flocked, driven by the rising waters? Humans would get there first, as the natural predators on top of the food chain. They'd bring domesticated animals and pets. Parasites and vermin would follow, and then wildlife and it's natural predators.

It's not that the myth are wrong. I think they just need looking at keeping their age in mind. This didn't happen last century, it happened couple of millenia ago.It makes a difference.

discovering archetypes

Everything... begins.
This... began over an inconsideration. On a shared 30-Kbps wireless line, bandwidth is precious; and as with any limited resource, there need to be rules to manage them, to prevent the whole system from collapsing. And when the rules are broken, there are... reactions. Solutions.
.

Gaiman was unknown to me except as a co-author, the other half of a superlative fantasy-spinner. From that one book followed another, and another... and the whole exploration may have ended there, but for... a few images. Images that prompted me to risk one, just one more experiment.

It gave me a name.

And one night, when the rulebreaker was away, a parallel method was found. An alternative. A chastisement.

A revenge.

The name was, then, inconsequential. It just floated along, and was pinned to the board as an as-good-as-any candidate.

The torrent completed its download.

And on a quiet tuesday evening, I discovered The Sandman.

.
I'm only 3 stories down, and already I can feel myself being drawn into that universe. Pictures move, faint sounds, scents. Depth.

Time.

Impact.
And most of all, it's so familiar. Like a racial memory, an archetype.

The Matrix. Morpheus. Neo. The black. Everything you see is a dream, and The One is the awakener.

Stephen King's Randall Flagg. The world that had moved on. The Tower. Alternate realities.

MIB. There are hidden truths, hidden stories all around you. Nothing is what it seems to be.

Illuminati.

The Man.

John Constantine.

The face in the crowd, for just a second, that looks right at you. Eyes meet. The shock, the subconscious recognition. Then it's gone, and no matter how hard you search, you can never find it again.
Walking through them all, is the same image.
.

The Endless.

The Man In Black.